Developer Forum

Hi,

I am trying to access a desktop application from my WinForm application. I am accessing the UI controls of the desktop application from my application, for this, I am getting the instance of that application Process, through that, getting the main application handle. Using that application handle I can navigate to any of the controls in that application, since all other controls are child control, only thing that I need to know is the relative path from the main application (ie, its either
GW_CHILD or GW_HWNDNEXT, this we can get using the Spy++ tool of Visual Studio). Now the problem I got struck in
is that I would like to navigate within the Tab control.
I would like to select tab page from a tab (of SysTabControl32 type), get its form/window/dialog control
to focus, play around with its controls, select some other tab page, so the same

Now, when I SendMessageA( handleToTabControl,TCM_SETCURSEL, TAB_PAGE_INDEX, null), its just
setting/showing the corresponding tab (button at the top) as if selected (by bring to front, relative to other
pages) , but the tab/window controls corresponding to the selected tab page are not being shown.

Am I sending wrong message or not doing enough stuff.
Can any body please help me out and give some clue

Thanks in advance

Burhan

burhan a crit:


You must also send WM_NOTIFY with TCN_SELCHANGE notification.

can you give me some sample code for the same, ie., to send TCN_SELCHANGE with WM_NOTIFY message. I am using C# and to not have a clue to do it
thanks in advance
burhan



burhan a crit

> Now, when I SendMessageA( handleToTabControl,TCM_SETCURSEL, TAB_PAGE_INDEX, null), its just
> setting/showing the corresponding tab (button at the top) as if selected (by bring to front, relative to other
> pages) , but the tab/window controls corresponding to the selected tab page are not being shown.

You must also send WM_NOTIFY with TCN_SELCHANGE notification

In fact, I think the easiest way is with mouse_event() or SendInput()
(with TCN_SELCHANGE, you have to inject code in the other process address space...)

> can you give me some sample code for the same, ie., to send TCN_SELCHANGE with WM_NOTIFY message. I am using C# and to not have a clue to do it
> thanks in advance

In fact, I think the easiest way is with mouse_event() or SendInput(
(with TCN_SELCHANGE, you have to inject code in the other process address space...

can you be more specific, since mouse event like WM_LBUTTONDOWN takes point as param,which we cannot know from a handle to window, and the tab control will raise approprieate events depending on the mouse position. And also SendInput, what do you mean by it.
burhan.

burhan a crit:


For mouse_event() you need x & y and must force the window on foreground
(MOUSEEVENTF_MOVE then MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTDOWN then MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTUP)
But to get x & y (TabCtrl_GetItemRect() and so on) you also have to
inject code into the other process (VirtualAllocEx() or hook)
Then, not great either.
Maybe someone else has a better solution...